Sunday, December 30, 2007

Last night Chad and I went to Deb and Bud's house to exchange Christmas presents. We were told to bring something dessert-y so we decided to try a recipe we saw on Barefoot Contessa. She had made some pumpkin mouse parfaits around Thanksgiving time. She used ginger snap cookies in the dessert and we had found gluten-free ginger snaps at Trader Joe's a while back so we knew we could try making it for Deb. We found the recipe and as it turns out, the mousse takes more than 4 hours to set and we didn't have that kind of time, so we modified the recipe. We ended up using instant cheese cake flavored pudding, home made whipped cream (by Chad), and chopped up bananas. We layered everything (with crumbled ginger snaps) in wine glasses and then garnished the top with a slice of banana and a whole ginger snap cookie. They were really tasty. As a side note, we couldn't decide if they were parfaits or trifles. Does anyone know the difference?

Chad and I drove over to Glenside the other day to get lunch and we noticed that this building was being demolished. This used to be a pizza place (called Pepperoni's Pizza). It had a fire a while back and they are just now tearing it down, I assume they plan to rebuild. Watch a video of the fire here.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

One of my Christmas presents was a new stereo system for my car that I got from Chad. The main features are an auxiliary input jack in the front, an iPod connector, and it plays MP3 CDs. I was getting really frustrated with my old setup because I like to listen to podcasts on my iPod on my way to work but my FM transmitter wasn't working very well and it only worked at all if I was in the car alone. Today my dad, Chad, and I installed the system in my car all by ourselves. It was a little scary taking apart the dashboard of my car but we got it done and it works beautifully! This is the second successful custom installation of a car stereo that we have performed! Anyone need one installed in their car? Haha.

So I'm sure you were wondering about what was in some of those packages from my last post. Well here is a photo of some of the items I received from Chad and my family. I was too impatient to pull everything together for the photo so this is just most of it. I really made out well this year, don't you think?!?!

This is a photo of most of the presents that were exchanged on Christmas day at the Joslyn household. There are actually a bunch that didn't fit in the photo, but I don't want to make you too sick to your stomach so I'm showing this picture of most of the presents. Christmas is a very happy time in my family. It was a great Christmas for me and I had a ton of fun with my family (not to mention the fact that I got everything I wanted!).

(Note: This is my photo from Monday, December 25, 2007 - Merry Christmas!)

I went to my parents' house for Christmas Eve (actually, I went to Chad's parents' house first, we went down on Sunday and I drove back on Monday). My dad had set up a mini train set around some artificial trees in the living room (the real tree was in the family room). The train set is from Japan and it represents real trains. I took this photo without really being able to see it because I had to reach around to shoot the front of the train but it came out pretty well anyway. This is the Yamanote-sen, which runs in a loop around the center of Tokyo. Pretty much all the big areas of "center city" Tokyo are serviced by the Yamanote-sen including Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, Tokyo, Ueno, and many others.

(Note: This is my photo from Monday, December 24, 2007 - Christmas Eve!)

Sunday, December 23, 2007

We have some really awesome neighbors. These are the new neighbors that moved in over the summer. They rang our doorbell today and then sang some Christmas carols for us. Notice that one of them is wearing shorts! Crazy!

Chad and I decided (for a variety of reasons) to open our presents last night. We also decided to wrap our presents mostly in brown paper bags and brown packing paper. We wanted the wrapping to not take too much time and we also thought it would be good to reduce our impact on the environment during this very wasteful time of year. So we used only already used materials for our gift wrapping (except for the tape, that's pretty hard to reuse, and that one blue bag you see here). I think it actually turned out pretty nicely!

I decided that Chad and I should go out for a nice dinner on Friday since it was our last working day of the year and we had both been working really hard lately. We went to a Thai restaurant near our house that we tried for the first time about a month or so ago. This place has really great food. You're looking here at their mushroom soup. It is full of finely chopped mushrooms and has a great flavor. Their portions are generous for dinner so we had leftovers on Saturday. Yummy!

This is one of my favorite pens. It is a fountain pen that I got in Japan when I was in High School (so it's about 9 years old). I actually don't use it that often anymore but I was using it this week for a variety of tasks. The only thing I don't like about it is that I can't stick the cap on the back end when I take it off because the end comes to a narrow point.

This is my first (only? last?) knitting project. I really wanted to make something for Heather this year because she is always making beautiful pottery pieces for us and I wanted to return the favor. Of course, she has a lot of experience with pottery so what do I do? Make something using a skill I don't have. Haha. But I think it turned out pretty well considering it was my first time. I only used the knit stitch so there wasn't anything fancy about it. I was just happy to finish it in time! Not sure if I'll do another one ...

Here are the Holiday cards we sent out this year. Of course, by Holiday cards I mean Christmas cards. I noticed this year how ludicrous this political correctness really is. I got an email one day saying that there was a special promotion going on where you could get a raincheck for a Wii to give as a holiday gift. Of course, you could only do it on December 21st at which point one religion's "holiday" was already over (Chanukah). It was obvious they were primarily thinking of Christmas, but they said "holidays". We are way too caught up in the whole thing, why can't we just say Christmas? Isn't it worse to say to a Jewish person "Have a nice holiday" on December 21st when their holiday is already over? And New Year isn't really a holiday so we should just say Happy New Year. Okay, I'm done with this, I just wanted to mention it because it really stuck out for me this year, although I don't know why.

I was listening to music and podcasts while working on Holiday projects this week and I just had to show everyone my favorite headphones. My parents got these for me in Japan before they left many years ago. I specifically requested them because I had tried similar ones before and they are awesome. The great thing is that your entire ear fits inside the little cavity they have and then the soft foam part rests against your head. They are so comfortable because they don't push your ears down. They block out a lot of other sound and everything just sounds awesome through them. I just thought I would share this with everyone. :-D

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Have you ever had one of those days where you thought you were going to get a project done pretty quickly and then it went kind of wrong and ended up taking much longer than you thought? Like maybe you were going to fix something up around the house, or maybe you were going to do a craft project for fun, and things just didn't go the way you planned? Well that's kind of what happened today, although I must say that everything pretty much worked out in the end, thanks to my parents. I can't give any more details right now other than that this is a photo of something involved.

Chad and I went out and did errands yesterday from about 10 AM till 5 PM. It was pretty crazy out there. While we were out we stopped at Pet Smart to pick up some treats for the guinea pigs. They had this little chinchilla for sale and it was actually really really cute. As we were leaving we saw it sitting in this branch sleeping and I just had to snap a photo of it.

Oh Heather, my life at the office would be so dull without such an ... interesting ... office mate. Haha. Heather had on this very ... lovely ... sweater on Friday. It was super soft and warm, the reasons she purchased it (not to mention the good price!), but you might say that it wasn't the most stylish piece of clothing in her wardobe.

I FINALLY got around to making a meal from the Moosewood cookbook that Heather gave me for my birthday. It was a chick pea/spinach Mediterranean dish. I actually used white beans instead of chick peas. It has a yogurt, mint, and garlic sauce on top and some saffron rice underneath. It was quite tasty. Low fat too!!

This is the watch that my parents gave me a few years ago. I've been wearing it every day and I just noticed about a week ago that the battery had stopped. That's a bummer because I don't really have time to get it replaced right now. But so far, I've found that it isn't bothering me that much. I'm surrounded by enough clocks that I don't have a problem finding out the time.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Adina is the best! She put together this awesome box of goodies for Chad and me for Christmas. There are even some gifts for two other undisclosed recipients who will hopefully be happily surprised when I pass the gifts along. I think everything in here was hand made, probably mostly from Etsy. People are so clever it makes me sick. Haha. Just kidding, but seriously, I wish I was a little more creative. I also wish I had more time to be ... Thanks Adina and Steph!

Yesterday was Chad and Aunt Beth's annual cookie day. Last year's was actually this year and you can find it among my posts from February. Chad made 7 batches of cookie dough but only baked about 4 of them. I then made some gluten-free pizzelles which actually turned out surprisingly well.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Chad and I decided that it's way too much work to have a real christmas tree. We have to go pick it out, get it home, saw off the bottom, get it in the stand, put the lights on, put ornaments on, keep it watered every day, take ornaments and lights off, and get it out to the curb to be picked up. Yes some parts of this are somewhat fun, but you know, we're just too tired this year for some reason. So we decided to use our little fake trees and our screen of candles instead. Chad got it all set up yesterday and we have it in our normal tree location. I think it's quite nice actually. We might do some fake snow underneath or something.

This is just ridiculous. Steve Anderson moved to Australia this weekend and before he went he was cleaning out his office. He found this huge pen and brought it in to Heather. I'm not quite sure why, maybe because she tends to like big pens. It's about 4 times the size of her hand.

The other day when there was snow on the ground I noticed these circles in the snow. It looked like someone intentionally made them but I couldn't figure out why. I asked Chad about it later and he said he was trying to get something gross off his shoes.

Chad and I are kind of bad about cups/glasses. We tend to let them accumulate on the second and third floors of our house. Then we collect them and take them downstairs all at once. Generally we don't have more than 3 or 4 each, but still ...

I got glasses a year ago. Or was it two years ago now? I'm not sure. They are for distances because apparently I'm near-sighted, especially in my right eye. This didn't really develop until I started working on computers all day long ... hmmm ... anyway ... I usually keep my glasses in my car so that I have them for when I drive. But because my glasses are so awesome, I barely feel them on me, so sometimes I forget and I wear them inside. That sucks because I don't have a holder to put them in and also I don't want to forget them in the morning. So I put them here right by the bedroom door.

I stayed home from work sick on Monday. I had been feeling nausea on and off for about a week. I think I was just tired and stressed and that's why it was coming and going. So by the middle of the day I was feeling a lot better, but then in the evening I got a massive headache with more nausea. I took some Advil, but it didn't really help. I was fine by the time I woke up the next morning though, so all's good.

On Saturday night Chad and I went down into Center City to see a Chris Garneau concert at the First Unitatian Church. It was held in this little chapel that only seats about 50 people comfortably. It was pretty cool.

On Friday I had breakfast at this little restaurant in Mystic Connecticut called Kitchen Little. I had scrambled eggs with cream cheese and jumbo lump crabmeat. It was fantastic. The restaurant was a little hole-in-the-wall kind of place but the food was very good.

Last Thursday I went up to Mystic Connecticut for a meeting I had to go to in the area on Friday. Unfortunately I didn't get to see Mystic Pizza. But I did see something interesting and that was this TV. All the TVs in the hotel rooms I saw were this model, which is exactly the same one I have at home. I haven't ever seen this TV anywhere else so I thought it was pretty funny.

Chad and I loved our downstairs curtains so much that we got ourselves some for our bedroom. We also put some insulating foam in the crack along the wall near the floor. We're hoping this will help keep our room warmer this winter. So far it seems to be working, but of course we aren't in the coldest months yet.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Apparently Stefan got dressed in the dark this morning because he was wearing two different shoes. As it turned out pretty much no one even noticed. I didn't know about it until he stopped by and told us. Luckily, the shoes were somewhat similar so it wasn't too bad. Classic.

Heather and I were both craving bagels yesterday morning and we were somewhat disappointed to realize that it was the last Monday of the month, which meant that we got donuts instead of bagels. Don't get me wrong, I love a good donut too, but I was just craving a bagel with cream cheese like crazy. So when Heather asked me to take her to pick up her car from the mechanic she offered to treat me to a bagel for lunch and I couldn't pass her up on that offer now could I? Here is my delicious bagel - everything bagel toasted with scallion cream cheese. Talk about bad breath, but I didn't care at all. Haha.

Chad and I went to see Eric Himan on Sunday at the World Cafe Live. Eric is so awesome. You should check out his music at his myspace page. I know this isn't the best photo in the world, but it was the best I could do given the low lighting situation.

Chad and I decided to rearrange the furniture in our upstairs TV/game room on Saturday. It's always fun to change a room around because it feels like a brand new space! We haven't finished cleaning up yet but I think I prefer the new layout so far. Hopefully we'll get around to painting this room sometime soon.

So this picture probably doesn't seem to have anything to do with Black Friday. But ... well it doesn't really. Haha. Actually, this was taken in the Best Buy parking lot. I thought the leaves on these shrubs just looked awesome and I had to take a photo. Chad and I got up a little after 5 AM and went shopping at Target, Staples, Best Buy, Circuit City, Michaels, Office Depot, Barnes and Noble, and Brave New Worlds. I know we shouldn't succumb to the consumerism of the holiday season but we just can't help it. It was a tiring but fun day.

Isn't this a lovely photo? Are you wondering what it is? It is our Thanksgiving turkey! Actually, it was just a turkey breast this year. And I say "just" in a very sarcastic way because the turkey breast was HUGE! I was expecting something much smaller, but it was basically a whole turkey with the legs and wings cut off. Craziness. It was tasty though!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Tonight is the night before Thanksgiving and my mom decided to make a fancy pumpkin pie. She cut out some leaf shapes from leftover crust and put them on the pie. Aren't they cute? Can't wait for tomorrow and all the gluttony.

If you shop at a typical grocery store you've probably encountered the free turkey deal around Thanksgiving time. If you spend a certain amount of money within a specified time period and use your member's card, then you get a coupon for a free turkey. Chad and I got to that amount last Sunday and got our coupon. I went on Tuesday to get the turkey and there were a ton of people at the store (surprise surprise). I meant to get just a turkey breast but they didn't have any left so I grabbed the smallest turkey I could find (10.89 lbs) hoping it would fit in my freezer. As you can see, it was a success!

Winter brings many joys. One of them is chapped lips. Oh wait, that's not really a joy is it? Well anyway, during the lovely winter months when my lips dry out I couldn't live without chapstick. This is the one I keep by my bed all the time. I will use any kind at all as long as it keeps my lips from feeling chapped.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Chad and I used to love getting breakfast pizza at the dining hall when we were in college. So this morning we attempted to resurrect that dining hall delicacy. We used a refrigerated pizza crust, some eggs, bacon and cheese. It turned out really well actually. We even added a little salsa. Not sure why but it was a good way to start the day!

When Chad and I got new cell phones, we both bought these cases for them. They are nice because they have a magnetic closing mechanism so there is no velcro, or clasp or anything like that. It makes them very easy to open quickly, yet they stay shut quite well. I sometimes where mine in my pocket using this clip on the back. Recently I noticed that the metal piece of the clip had started to stick out through the leather. It's a pain because it gets caught as I try to attach it.

Chad went to see a doctor a few weeks ago just to have a general checkup and because he had some kind of rash on his fingers. Apparently he used to get it every winter. It turned out to be a mild form of eczema. The doctor prescribed a cream for it but also recommended that Chad use a humidifier at home to help keep his skin from getting too dry. So we went out to Bed Bath and Beyond on Friday (gotta use those coupons!!) and got this awesome humidifier. Now, we could have gotten some plain one, but we decided to go for the one for little kids. It's just so adorable isn't it? I mean, it must be because it says so on the box! Check it out! We love it.

On Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving at the office. This is an office tradition where Golder provides turkey, ham, and a pasta dish and everyone brings side dishes, appetizers, desserts, drinks, etc. This year we had an incredible amount of food. In anticipation of the huge amount of food, the organizers very cleverly moved the feast up from Friday to Thursday so we could enjoy leftovers for lunch on Friday - and did we ever! This is a photo of the dish that Paddy brought. It was an Indian chicken curry and he made this little cheat sheet showing all the spices he used so everyone could see what was in them. It was a nice touch.

On Wednesday night we took a client out to dinner at La Campagne in Cherry Hill. The meal was excellent and I especially enjoyed my dessert. I had the Creme Brulee trio, which consisted of three flavors - black cherry, vanilla, and chocolate. I tasted each first, then ate them in order of least favorite to most favorite. Can anyone guess the order? Incidentally, Heather and Steve both ate them in the exact same order.

Oh how cute! It's a small tree growing in our backyard and its leaves turned a very nice maroon color. Only problem is that it is about 6 INCHES away from the house!!! It's going to have to be pulled out, but it was nice while it lasted.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Chad and I decided to have a very simple dinner tonight. So Chad made tuna melts. We haven't had them in a long time although we used to have them pretty regularly. We got chipotle cheddar cheese which was pretty good. It had a smoky taste. The only thing missing was some lettuce but it's such a waste to buy a head of lettuce just for this.

Last year our furnace didn't work when we first tried to turn it on for the winter. It turned out the pilot light wouldn't stay lit because the thermocouple was bad. So we had that replaced and all was peachy. The pilot stayed lit all through the year and when it got cold out again the heat kicked on. Then one day we realized it felt colder than it should in the guinea pigs' room, so Chad checked on the furnace and found that the pilot light had gone out again. He tried numerous times to relight it and it wouldn't stay lit. I had a feeling it was the thermocouple again, but it shouldn't need to be replaced within a year right? So we tried calling out the people who did it last time. Atlas Heating and Plumbing company of Glenside, PA (DON'T EVER USE THEM). They were completely unhelpful and kept stringing me along saying they could come out the next day, then never calling back. So I eventually told them to forget it and we called our parents' heating group. They came out the next day (Friday) and took care of the problem. It was the thermocouple as we expected but they couldn't say why it stopped working after just one year. I'm blaming the other company, so don't use them! Plus they were quite rude to me.

Oh...my...god... Have you ever had Ferrero Rocher? They are heaven on earth. They have a wonderful outer crust of chocolate and nuts on top of a wafer. Inside is a creamy chocolate center with a hazelnut in the middle. Well, we recently saw this package of them that included a coconut variety and a DARK CHOCOLATE variety. Chad went for the coconut and I had most of the dark chocolate ones. They are amazing! If you haven't had them, you must pick some up. They are all over the place now.